


Maybe

by 1lostone



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Daryl pov, Descriptions of wounds, M/M, Posted unbeta'd, RickylWritersGroup, Tiny bit o'angst, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4847750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1lostone/pseuds/1lostone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b> Maybe this is the time that Rick won’t come back.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaroonCamaro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaroonCamaro/gifts).



> Written for Maroon, who is having a rough day.

**Maybe this is the time that Rick won’t come _back_.**

Going out alone was almost suicide. Even with the old government “clearing” the area, evacuating the living to camps or god knew where, there were still a shitload of people around. Those shitload of people had died, and now we had a shitload of walkers. Add to the fact that they... well... _walked_ from all over the damn place, and liked to herd up whenever two of the undead fuckers saw each other, then you had a recipe for trouble.

After that mess at the meeting in Alexandria, Rick had just... stopped. I found out later that he’d gone to his house, leaving that Jesse chick screaming over her dead husband’s body, and Deanna still sobbing over hers, ignored the shock and disgusted-looking faces of the weak-ass Alexandria residents, and had disappeared outside of the walls.

**Maybe this is the time that Rick _won’t come back_.**

It’s easy enough for that to happen. To lose yourself. Rick’s changed since those days where he wore that sheriff's uniform like some symbol of normalcy. Like any of it fuckin’ mattered. Back when we’d all thought there was a chance for all of this shit to just be some big cosmic joke- like little kids who hide under the bed with their eyes scrunched shut, waiting for the monster to go away.

Only the monster had been real.

Through everything that happened at the farm, and at the prison, and that fucking hellhole Terminus, and even after that moment when Rick had taken out Joe’s throat with this teeth, Rick had still kept himself, himself. He’d might have lost his way a few times, but we’d always known he’d come back. Hell. Sometimes, I’d been the one to drag him back from that craziness. But now? After what had happened to that old guy Reg? What he’d done to that poor slob who killed Reg?

Rick had lost who he was, and I didn’t know quite what to do to bring him back this time. I’d walked in on that meeting with Aaron and Morgan, seen the flash of -had it been _betrayal_?- In Rick’s gaze for the split second that it had flicked from Aaron to me and down to where he’d just shot someone and had just shut down.

Michonne had looked to me once, and I nodded. We’d clean this shit up just like we’d always done, would always _do_ for Rick. Michonne started asking people to disperse; to clear their houses for more walkers, just in case. Abraham and a guy I didn’t know went out to the perimeter, checking that the fences were locked. Aaron’s ‘oh shit’ when we’d come back to a gate just standing open had prompted the three of us to hightail it for the area we’d seen lit up, but we didn’t know if anything else had gotten in.

I saw that Reg guy didn’t have anything through his head, which meant that someone was gonna have to do it, to make sure he didn’t reanimate and take off his wife’s face. Shit. I looked around and saw that no one else was there, aside from Jesse who’d stopped screaming and was just sitting there, staring at her husband.

“Ma’am?”

Deanna looked up at me and I felt my insides quake. That was not the look of the sane woman who’d wanted me to sit in that damn interview chair so she could film me. Then I’d been unable to really talk- who the fuck was she to try to get me to- until I remembered Lil’ A and Carl, and I’d said whatever she’d damn well needed to hear so that they’d be able to stay here, safe. Now though- there was none of that on her face. No compassion. No curiosity. Grief had aged her ten years, and I had to wonder if she knew what she’d set in place, encouraging Rick to kill that other guy. Sometimes you can’t get a mad dog back on its leash.

I had Aaron lead her away from her husband, and stabbed him in the back of the head, hopefully where it wouldn’t be too noticeable. I didn’t want to add to her heartbreak. These people were strangely fragile, and while part of me wanted to shake shit up, shake _them_ up so they’d wake the fuck up to the reality behind those walls, the other part still wanted to protect them.

I wrapped the older guy in a tablecloth, and left him for Deanna’s friends to sort out. I wanted to check on Carl and Lil’ A, and then see if I could find their asshole of a father.

But I couldn’t. Rick was gone.

****

“You’re gonna wear a path in that tile.”

I ignored Carol, frowning in her direction, but not saying anything. It was hard enough not immediately going out and looking for him. I felt like I was waiting for a prom date to show up. Not that I’d ever _had_ a prom date. I would have sooner set someone on fire then take them home to meet my family. I couldn’t help it though. I was stuck here. I couldn’t go outside. The Alexandria people had closed ranks around their fallen, completely forgetting that their leader had asked Rick to be their muscle. That was bullshit. Rick wouldn’t have shot the guy without a reason that was known probably only to Rick, but having her permission made it on her, too. Ain’t no way she was just gonna disassociate herself from that shit.

Rick had been out there too long.

He didn’t know about how me and Aaron been trapped in that fuckin’ car, like two guppies in a bowl surrounded by a group of hungry, pissed-off cats. As fucked up as that had been, it was the fact that it was a _trap_ that had worried me the most. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to set that up. The fact that we didn’t know who and that Rick could be walkin’ blindly into some epic shit...

The late afternoon sun just made me realize how long he’d been gone. I heard Little A start fussin’ (she was teething again) and altered my pacing to swing by her daybed. When Carl had heard what had happened, he’d gone off upstairs. Michonne, who had defaulted to periodically checking up on him, said he was just listening to headphones and reading comics.

Guess the little crowd of kids he’d met didn’t much appreciate what his dad had done.

Assholes.

Judith smelled like baby powder and baby shampoo. I ignored the way Carol fluttered her eyelashes at me when I held Little A’s tiny body to my chest. Rick’s little girl wasn’t a very happy with him either. She looked at me with big brown eyes filled with tears and I knew it was because her mouth hurt. You couldn’t get me to admit to it under actual physical torture, but this baby girl had wrapped me around her little finger without even tryin’. Ever since that first few hours that she’d been born and Rick had disappeared into the tombs, I’d almost felt like she was my own. Not that I could show it all that often, other than making sure she didn’t need anything.

I knew where RIck kept the liquor cabinet, and made my way to it, intending to give Judith a little bit of whisky on her pacifier, like my mama had done for me and my cousins when she’d babysat them, but you woulda thought I was gonna do shots with her out of her sippy cup by the way Carol looked at me.

Shit. What did I know about raisin’ kids? Judith looked much less satisfied with the teething ring Carol handed me to hand her, and I couldn’t much blame her. Judith quieted down and I set her back into her playpen, watching as she chomped moodily on the little monkey-shaped toy.

“I think I’m gonna go on out. See what I can see.” I hefted my crossbow up and onto its customary place on my shoulder. I had a full quiver of arrows and went ahead and took that as well. Those pretentious fucks still kept the guns locked up, but no one had checked me when Aaron, Morgan and I had stumbled in through the gates. I still had my Magnum, and while I didn’t often use it, it was good to have it in a pinch. If that failed, I had my knife, an awl, and a chipped nail file that still spelled out ‘Nana’s Nails’ on the handle. I didn’t know who ‘Nana’ was, but her nail file had saved my ass on more than one occasion.

“Is Aaron going with you? It would be stupid for the both of you to be out alone.” Sasha’s voice was low, and it made me realize that she hadn’t done much talking in the weeks we’d been here in Alexandria. She had all the reason in the world to be quiet. I made a mental note to chase down some time to get Carol, Maggie or Michonne to talk to her. Sasha wasn’t hateful or nothin, but we’d never really gotten along. She’d tell one of the women what she wouldn’t tell me, and that was the point, right?

Not wanting to lie to her, I just grunted and made my way out past Sasha and Carol towards the front door. Carol looked at me and raised her eyebrows. I shrugged in return, and knew my message was received when she nodded. Her question, ‘are you sure’ and my answer ‘gotta be’ might as well been spoken out loud. We’d grown pretty close since going into Atlanta together, and she’d long ago learned how to talk to me without using words.

The only other person who had done that was Rick.

I didn’t want to ask Aaron to go. He and Eric were good people, and I’d started to like him enough that I didn’t want to put him in the position of being stuck between what the citizens of Alexandria wanted, and what Rick’s group needed.

I’d find Rick on my own.

I had a good three hours of daylight left by the time I let the gates close behind me. I should have just gone on my own, following Rick out of the gates and to wherever he’d gone.

His trail was almost a joke. Rick hadn’t bothered trying to hide his tracks. Blood from the walkers he’d killed, or blowback from when he’d executed that doctor guy, didn’t much matter. Wasn’t enough to be his was all I cared about. I followed him down a little hill, and to the house we’d met at when Carol had hidden the weapons. There were two fresh kills lying in the junk from the house. I’d seen so many of Rick’s kills that they hardly fazed me.

Until I kicked one over.

What I saw caused my heart to stop in my chest. I felt my blood freeze in my veins. I think I cried out something. Not sure. Couldn’t tell you if the sound I was hearing was from my throat or my heart.

Rick was lying sprawled under one of the bodies, one hand flung out as though reaching for the knife just out of his reach. The walker wasn’t moving. It was sprawled on top of Rick, so that I couldn’t see the top half of his body. The walker I had just moved had been curled over the bottom half of Rick’s body- like they’d been feeding.

In a heartbeat I was on my knees, pulling the dead one off of him. He was very, very pale, with a wound on his forehead that still bled sluggishly. “Rick!” I wheezed his name, sounding like a damn 80 year old man with the fragility of my voice.

I was almost afraid to check to see if he was still breathing, terrified that he wouldn’t be. That this would be real.

_-NoNotRickIcan’tCan’tdothiswithoutyoumanmybrothermyfriendmy-_

I made myself check his chest, setting my hand gingerly on his sternum.

The sound I made when I felt it move made sounded like some wounded animal. Still, a moving chest didn’t mean much. I slid my finger against his neck, eyes burning when I felt the too-fast thrum of his pulse.

“Christ,” I muttered. Rick’s unconscious, has been for god knows how long, and I’m actin’ like a goddamn fool.

I didn’t see any bites, but there was a lot of blood from somewhere. I pulled open his jacket, and cut open his t-shirt, looking for wounds. Shit, his jeans and gunbelt were soaked.

I felt like an idiot for being embarrassed at unbuckling his belt and unzipping his fly, but when I saw the puncture wound on his hip I swear to god that my heart stopped again, while my brain shrieked around like a rabid rat in a cage.

I gently turned Rick over and saw the neat little hole of the exit wound. He’d been... shot?

Jesus fucking _Christ._ He’d been lying here, hurt, while I dicked around.

I wish I’d thought to take someone with me, but no. I’d wanted to be the one to find Rick myself. So fucking stupid. I dug in my pack for the extra shirt I kept there and padded the wound on both sides, trying to stop the bleeding. I didn’t have any gauze, but I had duct tape, and didn’t hesitate at wrapping it around his stomach. Redneck surgery or not, it worked. Or, at least it would hold long enough for me to get him home.

I heard a sound and looked around, my hand going to the butt of my gun. No one was around. It was only about ten minutes to sunset, so my visibility was limited. I listened carefully, looking for a threat. Nothin’. I heard the sound again and realized it was Rick, tryin’ to say my name.

“D’r’l.”

Well, close enough. I’d take it. I don’t know what expression was on my face. Now that I knew he was relatively alright, the leftover adrenaline was making me shaky. I wanted to strangle him and kiss him, and for a second I didn’t know which one would win out.

Then Rick slowly raised his blood-covered hand, cupping my cheek and quirking an exhausted smile up at me. His eyes were very blue in the setting sun, and I couldn’t make myself look away for anything.

“Knew you’d find me,” he whispered. His hand was very cold on my cheek, and I ducked my head, using my shoulder to press the back of his hand, so that the palm pressed against the stubble on my face, trying to warm up his cold flesh.

A branch snapped, and we whirled, him heaving himself up with my help, leaning against each other like a couple of old drunks. I wrapped my hand around his shoulders, and he wrapped his hand around my waist.

Without speaking, I began herding us towards Alexandria. What I had to say was best behind walls, but I knew it wasn’t gonna stay buried behind my teeth much longer.

Maybe sometime Rick won’t come back.

Maybe.

Nowadays our lives were filled with one big old maybe.

But this time? Long as I was ‘round to get his back?

He absofuckinglutely _would._

 

-END


End file.
